Sometimes it’s worth reminding ourselves that despite all the noise they make online, the Men’s Rights movement has basically no presence in the real world. The picture above is an actual photo of a men’s rights symposium at Montana State University. Here’s how the local NBC affiliate described what went down – or, more accurately, what didn’t go down:
The MSU chapter of the National Coalition for Men organized a symposium to raise awareness of problems in men’s lives.
The group geared the event towards fraternity students at the college and invited speakers to talk about things like men’s rights when it comes to sexual misconduct investigations on-campus.
No one showed up to the event but organizers say the lack of attendance is not due to a lack of interest.
You just keep telling yourself that.
Good night feminists. Maybe I’ll check again tomorrow if I feel it’s worth it, but at this point your arguments are ad homs, straw man attacks, innuendo, etc.
valid arguments, questions, facts… xD
Why is it all the trolls always have to go to bed/eat/save the world/etc whenever I show up? xD You’d almost think this was the same Marc and he knows me…
@Ami I told him to “calm down (drink a glass of water)” after 5 + post monologues and he thinks of that as a ‘personal putdown’
Oh, hold on, I didn’t see a few.
“What personal attacks.”
Uh, like “asshole” coming from more than one person, or the silly nonsense focusing on me rather than on the issues.
“Great. So very few men are seeking help in the first place, but lets sue services that women need desperately rather than build support networks and build men’s DV shelters. Which would probably make more men a hell of a lot more comfortable coming forward too since they’d have a place that is totally their own.”
At least 10% of those seeking DV services at shelters are men. That’s straight from a state of CA report. And since the hotlines don’t refer men to the shelters that discriminate, it’s likely that number is higher. One shelter person told me it was more like 2 out of 5. But whatever the number, building a shelter will not cover the spread the existing shelters have. The existing ones take state taxpayer money, which men pay more than half of. I’ve said this again and again. If they get taxpayer money, they should not discriminate. So suing them and the state of CA is the best way to change that, all at once.
And as I said many times, if it was women being denied services, and women sued, you would not be criticizing the lawsuits. If a union was excluding women because there were only a few, or if women were denied equal services under a “Men’s Occupational Safety and Health Act,” you would not criticize women for suing to stop the discrimination.
“There are no words marc, you’re an asshole. Plain and simple.”
No, you are.
So good night feminists.
The difference between you and me is that I wouldn’t sue or see the benefit in suing a service that I know is used to help victims. Especially if I knew there was a group of people who are overwhelmingly in need of a particular service I wouldn’t try to harm that service because I’m not an asshole like that. Like I said, its different then suing a workplace or restaurant or whatever for discrimination because those places don’t house victims of abuse who often have no other place to go.
And no vouchers you say? again from your ABC article:
It wasn’t good enough. You had to strike lower. You take the easy way out and sue rather than do the work that feminists did in the first place, when if can be argued effectively that women need DV shelters more than men.
And you can throw all the links you want at me, I’ve looked into most of them and while I believe that more women commit DV at a higher rate than I initially thought and agree that there should be shelters available for male victims of DV, I’m still not buying that DV is exactly 50/50 because I trust the facts I find on the CDC, NIJ and World Health Organization. They have no reason to lie. On top of that the CTS scale that Straus/Gelles use is flawed because it doesn’t take into account rape/sexual assault or violence that occurs during a divorce or separation which accounts for a large amount of DV and even those studies themselves admit that women still get injured at a higher rate than men.
Yeah right. I’m really going to work with people who have expressed that they wish that they see me dead because I’m a feminist and who think I’m evil incarnated. Also what the hell do you think you’re doing right now? arguing on the internet.
Whatever I think I’m done here. There were other options in my opinion and all I have left to say is I hope that NCFM actually gets men’s shelters BUILT and that the woman’s shelter you sued was indeed represented pro bono and no victims were screwed over in the process.
Sounds like an excuse to me. If these women’s shelters are state funded then there’s no reason that shelters specifically for male victims of DV wouldn’t be state funded as well. So why not lobby the government for them? They have to afterall. If men need DV shelters that badly do it. You also don’t take into consideration the problems that may arise if shelters are co-ed. Female abusers could try to get in as could male abusers. And I haven’t seen any hard evidence stating that men have an equal demand for DV shelter as women do and also no proof that hotlines don’t refer men to shelters. Either way if there’s enough need for it the state has to fund it.
Also you keep saying that men pay MORE than half of taxes, prove it. All I find when I googled was an MRA site and even then it says men will pay more in Europe http://menareangrynow.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/european-states-counseled-to-have-men-pay-more-taxes-than-women/
The US is not Europe.
So you were upset that people here “make baseless generaliztions”
Kinda like:
“That is how feminists argue.”
“you just spewed the usual feminist myths.”
“But it suits the feminist purpose.”
“Just keep changing the subject. Feminist style.”
xD
I don’t think people here are the ones making baseless generalizations, or dismissing people based on those generalizations xD
Honestly, the way he uses it, feminist might as well be an ad hom xD
I thought he went to bed. Funny, how when he felt I went away, he returned xD
And I haven’t seen any hard evidence stating that men have an equal demand for DV shelter as women do and also no proof that hotlines don’t refer men to shelters.
INTERESTINGLY, there’s a case going on in Sudbury, Ontario right now where a trans woman has lodged a Human Rights Commission complaint against YWCA Sudbury for not allowing her access to their shelter because she’s trans, and in the call, she was referred to a men’s shelter.
But apparently, if she was a cis man, they wouldn’t have done that. xD
@Ami
and then he says
If feminists lying, ad-hom using, myth-making subject-changing idiots why would MRAs want to work with us? Why would we want to work with MRAs who despise us and have said even WORSE than that?
and I still don’t get why the state cant fund and build independent men’s shelters since by law they HAVE TO. MRAs need to push for that and I’ll support and push for that too, but I still think its a really shitty thing to do to sue women’s shelters because it does harm the victims who need them and are using them. Not every case is going to be pro bono like the one he sued (or so he claims)
And that is an interesting though sad case. It could be dangerous for her but that’s an example of a men’s shelter at least.
It just seems like the best solution is to get more shelters built that include all people. Both feminists and MRAs need to lobby the government for these changes.
ah crap, another men’s shelters argument and nobody told me?
i’ve just been arguing with the Dukes of Hazard on the other thread about this
Whenever I see a MRA saying feminists are big meanies for not working with them, I’m reminded of when the National Vanguard (neo-nazis) complained that all of us socialists and anarchists were big meanies for not wanting to organize with them at anti-globalization demos.
I’ll work with MRAs when their basic position does not consist of anti-feminist backlash, collaboration with white supremacists (like @ In Malafide or Spearhead), death threats to feminist/socialist activists, rape and DV apologism.
@ Marc
You are deserving of a modicum of respect in that you are actually active. It stops there, though. If you stuck to your activism without blaming “feminists” (in italics because you, like all MRAs, are unable/unwilling to understand what one actually is) you would find a considerable degree of support amongst genuine feminists (not your MRA deluded fantasy of what a feminist is).
Instead, you seem stricken with that which is common to all MRAs: delusional anger, paranoia and ignorant self importance. Those who self identify with MRAs do so in full knowledge of the revolting system that accomponies it. You self identify as an MRA and you support Paul Elam. Elam is a man who wants any rapist found innocent. That is, if your wife/sister/aunt/niece/cousin/friend was violated by a man, Paul Elam would want that man to walk free. You must be aware of this?
AVfM has blamed and scorned women for being victims of abuse, men for being raped, “feminists” for 9/11 (as well as wars in general) and, as already mentioned, endorse domestic terrorism. Instead of being disgusted at the miserable, vindictive, paranoid and incorrect ramblings on that sad little blog, you praise the “publisher” and refuse to distance yourself from him.
Marc, you are an MRA – self identified. You had an opportunity to distance yourself from the scum that constitute the MRM and you didn’t. Therefore, in the eyes of any decent human, you are scum and should be treated as such.
Dear everyone,
I have, for a moment, adopted the methodology of Antz and I have a formal statement to make…
THE ANTI-MRA MOVEMENT HAS WON!! THOSE BIGOTS HAVE BEEN STOPPED!!
Look at the evidence – no-one at their meeting and we now have the attention of the only active men’s rights activists that anyone has ever heard of!!
Victory, brothers & sisters.
How does it taste?
The thing that aggrivates me most about this Marc is his actual obfusication of important, established things just to serve his agenda.
To see him get defensive and use “IF THERE WAS A WOMAN INVOLVED YOU WOULDN’T CARE” fallacies is one thing, but to hear that he has threatened a shelter and made things harder for abused people of multiple gender identities, thinking that he has won a victory for men, is…ugh.
We need to do something about that shit. It’s just not fair.
Kitten health update, for anyone who cares: swelling in mouth way down. She no longer looks like a lopsided chipmunk! Good appetite. Very purry. 🙂
The thing that bothered me about Marc was that any woman who ever said anything bad was suddenly “all feminists.” And his failure to acknowledge that there are some fucked up MRAs, like Paul Rapey Elam. And that his own ad hom attacks were okay, apparently. And his failure to read his own links. Off to work!
The reality is that the men who are actually active out there making things better for men all identify as *feminists*. The self-identified “men’s rights” people is almost entirely right-wing backlashers whose activism is entirely anti-feminism or ‘libertarian’ red-baiting (rather than pro men’s rights), and a few useful idiots who actually do care about men issues and have not yet figured that out (but will end up dropping out the MRM once they do).
@BlackBloc- I know right? I do think it’s important for there to be a male-led movement for issues like male birth control, male rape awareness, acceptance for male homemakers, etc. But it seems to me that most of that comes out of feminist theory and can be built upon, rather than hate-spewing MRAs.
Marc’s link also had a post about why the NCFM opposes this year’s reauthorization of the VAWA
The author claims it’s an MRA victory that eight Republican senators from the Senate Judiciary Committee voted against it. The real reason they voted against it was because they opposed the bill expanding more services to LGBT victims and undocumented immigrants. MRA’s are not the reason for the Republicans voting the way they did. They voted against it because Republicans are homophobic and racist.
By the way, this year’s draft of VAWA would help male victims of violence have access to more services. Why on earth would MRA’s oppose the expansion of services if they actually wanted to help male victims? I honestly wish the law would be changed to Violence against People Act just to reiterate the point that it not only helps women but all victims of IPV. If that was the case, the MRA’s couldn’t whine about the name anymore. They’d have to tell the truth about why they oppose it.
Finally, the NCFM links to SAVE, Stop Abusive and Violent Environments, so that shows even more of what their real agenda is. Two of SAVE’s stated core principles are
and
The first principle is flat out saying that there are many victims who lie about their abuse. This hurts all victims by casting doubt and suspicion about their experiences. The second principle is problematic, too. If a family member is abusive to hir partner or children, then the family should not be preserved. The victims need to be away from the abuser.
@BlackBloc
Do you have any examples of male feminist making things better for men? Just a few names to back up your claim.
Kitten health update, for anyone who cares: swelling in mouth way down.
Hooray for improved kitten health! Keep gettin’ better kitty!